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The Dominator reviews
Pioneer LDCE
- Cat.no: PLFEC 35571
- Cert: 18
- Running time: 149 minutes
- Sides: 3 (CLV)
- Year: 1987
- Pressing: UK, 1996
- Chapters: 20 (7/7/6)
- Sound: Dolby Surround
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- Price: £29.99
Director:
- Adrian Lyne (Flashdance, Jacob’s Ladder, Indecent Proposal)
Producers:
- Stanley R. Jaffe & Sherry Lansing
Screenplay:
- James Dearden (from his original screenplay)
Music:
- Maurice Jarre
Cast:
- Dan Gallagher: Michael Douglas (Disclosure, Basic Instinct)
Beth Gallagher: Anne Archer (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger)
Alex Forrest: Glenn Close (101 Dalmations, Meeting Venus)
Ellen Gallagher: Ellen Hamilton Latzen
Arthur: Fred Gwynne (My Cousin Vinny, The Munsters – the original Herman!)
Man in Japanese Restaurant: James Eckhouse (Beverly Hills 90210)
Fatal Attraction: Michael Douglas plays Dan Gallagher, a lawyer whose firm does work for some book publishers. They attend a function one evening and he chances across a meeting with Alex Forrest (Glenn Close), an editor for one of the publishers that his firm works for. Their meeting is brief, as it’s time to leave, but he sees her again the next day at a meeting.
Afterwards, they go for dinner, and the attraction is plain for all to see. And..his wife and daughter are away for the weekend staying with her parents in the country. Next they go back to her place, cue the sex-scene-on-the-sink, then into a nightclub which fires up the speakers no problem, and finally the ol’ blowjob-in-the-lift trick before back to her place for the night.
Next day, after he speaks to his wife by phone, Alex calls him, despite the fact that he never gave her his number. And so the affair begins…
The picture quality is good, sometimes looking a little soft, which is exactly how the video quality was like. The surround sound is mainly functional for most of the time creating the ambience in the day-time scenes, and then filling out for scenes like the nightclub, and when Anne Archer finds out that it’s not the Sunday joint that’s cooking for dinner…
Chapters are functional, but sparse. Seems to be a case of “feast or famine” with Pioneer discs. Some have loads (eg. Shawshank Redemption, Apollo 13), and some have few (eg. Congo, Hunt For Red October). This one has 20, and as I describe their layout, I shall include exactly what makes this a Special Edition.
The content mirrors the VHS version, in that it begins with an opening segment from Adrian Lyne, describing some of scenes which didn’t make it into the final cut for whatever reason, and some which took an age to film including the one where Michael Douglas was meant to eat a cream cake, and Glenn Close would make reference to how a certain amount was left under his nose by mistake. It was kept in as it was a key scene, but it became nigh-impossible to get the right amount of cream left under his nose, as the cast and crew just fell about laughing.
Then we have the film proper, with chapters split usefully into sections such as “The Rabbit”, “Rollercoaster”, and just before “End Credits” comes “Bath Time”, so you know exactly where you are.
After the end credits, comes “Original Ending” which shows the, erm… original ending, which was left out in favour of the one used, because it is dark by comparison in its tone, and didn’t fare too well in test audiences.
The one you saw in the cinema, or on ITV if they didn’t cut it too much, is the typical Hollywood slam-bang affair, in which good always triumphs over evil. The original ending?…well, you’ll have to wait and see that for yourself.
Following this, is Adrian Lyne’s closing segment, with more thoughts on the film.
If I had one niggle about it, it would be in the way that the entire content is presented. Sure enough, it’s a good idea to have a format where you have the director’s introduction, followed by the film, then the original ending, and then the closing words from the director, however…
…the film itself runs for 114 mins, and the supplements are approx. 35 mins long. The opening segment is approx. 20 mins long, and as a result of putting this first, it means the film itself is split over 3 sides, rather than two sides that it could fit on. However, this isn’t Pioneer’s fault, as it wouldn’t be logical to fit the “Opening Segment” at the end of the 3rd side just before the “Closing Segment”.
About the chapters, I haven’t got my numbers mixed up, chapters 7 and 14 are split over sides 1 and 2, & 2 and 3 respectively. Quite why this is done I don’t know, as a similar thing happened with the PAL LDs for The Blues Brothers and The Hunt for Red October. However, this doesn’t split any particular scene in two. In fact, the side breaks are very good, so I don’t know why two extra chapter numbers couldn’t have been added in.
On the whole, Fatal Attraction is one of my favourite Hollywood-nonsense films, and well worth getting even though the film is split over three sides. The extras certainly make up for that. Michael Douglas excels in his usual uptight-man-with-a-problem role, Anne Archer plays the upset-wife-with-a-hubby-who’ll-come-through-in-the-end (eg. Patriot Games)
Yes, you may have seen this film a hundred times on television or video, but it’s never one that disappoints considering the performances from the two main leads, and having the Special Edition on laserdisc makes it even more collectable.
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1996.
Check out Pioneer‘s Web site.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.